Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and the
unemployment rate,
at 8.5 percent, continued to trend down, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics
reported today. Job gains occurred in transportation and
warehousing, retail trade,
manufacturing, health care, and mining.

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons (13.1 million) and the
unemployment rate
(8.5 percent) continued to trend down in December. The
unemployment rate has
declined by 0.6 percentage point since August. (See table
A-1.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or
more) was
little changed at 5.6 million and accounted for 42.5 percent of
the unemployed.
(See table A-12.)

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.0 percent) and
the employment-
population ratio (58.5 percent) were both unchanged over the
month. (See
table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons
(sometimes
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) declined by 371,000
to 8.1
million in December. These individuals were working part time
because their
hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a
full-time job.
(See table A-8.)

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor
force in
December, little different from a year earlier. (The data are not
seasonally
adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted
and were
available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the
prior 12 months.
They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched
for work in
the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 945,000 discouraged
workers in
December, a decrease of 373,000 from a year earlier. (The data
are not seasonally
adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking
for work
because they believe no jobs are available for them. The
remaining 1.6 million
persons marginally attached to the labor force in December had
not searched for
work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as
school attendance or
family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)

Here's more from the establishment survey....

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 200,000 in
December. Over the
past 12 months, nonfarm payroll employment has risen by 1.6
million. Employment
in the private sector rose by 212,000 in December and by 1.9
million over the
year. Government employment changed little over the month but
fell by 280,000
over the year. (See table B-1.)

Employment in transportation and warehousing rose sharply in
December (+50,000).
Almost all of the gain occurred in the couriers and messengers
industry (+42,000);
seasonal hiring was particularly strong in December.

Retail trade continued to add jobs in December, with a gain of
28,000. Employment
in the industry has increased by 240,000 over the past 12 months.
Over the month,
job gains continued in general merchandise stores (+13,000) and
in clothing and
clothing accessories stores (+11,000). Employment in sporting
goods, hobby, book,
and music stores fell by 10,000.

Employment in professional and business services changed little
in December for
the second month in a row. The industry added 42,000 jobs per
month, on average,
during the first 10 months of 2011.

Government employment changed little in December but was down by
280,000 over
the year. Job losses in 2011 occurred in local government; state
government,
excluding education; and the U.S. Postal Service.

Lots more to come momentarily....

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ORIGINAL POST: Here it is folks! The number the world has been
waiting for: The December Non-Farm Payrolls report.

Analysts expect 155K new jobs, up from 120K that were reported in
November.

Private payrolls are expected to be 178K vs. 140K in the prior
month.

The unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 8.7% from 8.6%.

There's a lot of optimism coming into this number, thanks to
consistently low initial jobless claims reports, generally strong
data, and of course yesterday's ADP report, which indicated that
325K private payrolls were released in the month.

Of course, this report doesn't just include private payrolls, and
it will be interesting to see whether the pace of layoffs at the
public sector is speeding up or slowing down. Last month, public
sector layoffs subtracted 20K from the total number.